“Have you thought what this would do to mother?” I asked. “She doesn't know you've quarreled with Jim. If she found out you were contemplating a divorce, it would kill her. You know how weak she is.”
I heard Jim's heavy tread coming downstairs.
“Can I stay with you, Mary?” Big tears stood in Helen's eyes and she seemed on the verge of a complete breakdown.
“Of course, Honey-bunch!” Mary responded, kissing her and leading her into the drawing-room. “Just go in there and lie down while I get my things.”
As Helen walked from the room, Jim came in. Mary turned toward us, looked us over for the briefest moment and whispered, “You men are brutes!” As she ran up-stairs, Jim gazed after her. That same gray look had come back into his face.
“I guess we are,” he said, shaking his head, “but I don't know how or why.”
I patted him on the shoulder and went for my coat. Whether he realized it or not, I knew Helen would never come back to him.
I went out to the car and turned on the lights. A white moon was sailing through a sky cluttered with puffy clouds, its soft radiance bathing the house and grounds in mellow loveliness. It all seemed so remote from the sordid quarrel inside that its beauty was enhanced by the contrast. Here was a night when the whole world should be in love. Nature herself conspired to that end. And yet, there were thousands of men and women who were so forgetful of everything except their own petty differences that they turned their backs to the beauty around them, in order to try to hurt each other.
As Helen and Mary came out of the door, I climbed into the car and said to myself, “Damn men, damn women, damn everything!”
CHAPTER FOUR. THE WORST HAPPENS
I was late getting down to the office the next morning, for I had gone back to Jim's and talked till all hours. It seemed that my instructions to Wicks, to tell Annie to stay with Helen, had been taken quite literally by that estimable pair, for when Helen had told the girl to leave she had refused, saying that Mr. Felderson had ordered her to stay. That was what had precipitated the quarrel.
Even when I left Jim, to go to bed, I had heard him walking back and forth in his room, and once during the night, I heard him shut his door. Thinking perhaps he might want me with him, I went to his door and knocked. Jim was untying his shoes and explained that, unable to sleep, he had gone out for a walk. The clock on the mantel-piece showed half past four.
In spite of the fact he had practically no sleep the night before, he was down at his usual hour, nine o'clock, and when I went into his office to see him, there was no sign of fatigue on his face.
“Any news?” I inquired.
“This may interest you,” and he tossed over the morning paper folded to an article on the first page.
ZALNITCH FREED
GOVERNOR FALLON PARDONS MAN
IMPLICATED IN YELLOW PIER
EXPLOSION
Prisoner Upon Release Makes Terrific
Indictment Against Those Responsible for
His Imprisonment
I glanced hurriedly down the long article. One paragraph in particular caught my eye. It was part of a quotation from Zalnitch's “speech” to the reporters.
“Those who were responsible for my imprisonment may well regret the fact that justice has at last been given me. I shall not rest until I lay before the working classes the extent to which the processes of law can be distorted in this state, and rouse them to overthrow and drive out those who have the power of depriving them of their rights and their liberty. I shall not rest until I see a full meed of punishment brought to those who have punished me and hundreds like me. Their money and their high position will not help them to escape a just retribution.”
“It looks as though our friend was going to have a very restless time,” I commented, after reading the passage aloud to Jim.
“'Vengeance is mine,' saith Zalnitch.” Jim's eyes twinkled.
“You're not afraid of him, are you, Jim?” I asked.
“No more now than ever, Bupps.”
His face suddenly clouded over. “Wouldn't it clear the air, though, if they did carry out their funny little threats and put me out of the way? When I think of some of the things Helen has said to me during the last month, I almost wish they would.”
“That sounds weak and silly,” I scoffed; “not a bit like you, Jim. Cheer up! Give Helen a divorce and let her go! She's not worth all this heartache.”
Jim sat for a moment thinking. “You don't know what this has done to me, Bupps. It's not as though divorcing Helen would straighten the whole matter out. Ever since I've known Helen I've—idolized her—foolishly, perhaps. She has been the one big thing worth working for; the thing I've built my whole life around. I've got to fight for her, Bupps. I can't let her smash my ideals all to pieces. I've got to make her live up to what I've always believed her to be.”
The tone of the man, the dead seriousness of his words, made me want to disown Helen and then kill Woods. I left the room with my eyes a bit misty and did my best, in the case I was working on, to forget.
For two days I was kept so busy I hardly saw Jim except when I had to go into his office for papers, or to consult an authority. I was trying to win a case against the L. L. &G. railroad, and though I knew my client could never pay me a decent fee, even if I should win, I was pitted against some of the best lawyers in the state, and was anxious for the prestige that a verdict in my favor would give me. The case was going my way, or seemed to be, but the opposition was fighting harder every day, so that I had time for little else than food, sleep and work. Frank Woods had apparently left town, either on business or to give Helen a clear field to influence Jim. Helen was still at Mary's, and her presence on a visit there was so natural that it hid her separation from Jim better than if she had gone home to mother.
I was just leaving for court one morning when Jim called me into his office. There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes and his whole attitude was one of cheerful excitement.
“Have you a minute, Bupps?”
“Only a minute, Jim. This is the day of days for me.”
There were several letters and telegrams lying on the table. Jim pointed exultantly to them and cried: “I've got him, Bupps! There is enough evidence there to send Woods up for twenty years. I wouldn't have used such underhand methods against any one else, against anything but a snake, but I had to win, I had to win!”
I rushed to the table and rapidly scanned one of the telegrams.